Why Racing Point’s ‘clone’ philosophy is good news
Racing Point's 2020 challenger, the RP20, looks visually similar to last season's championship-winning Mercedes. That might be a good thing.
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Racing Point captured headlines during 2020’s pre-season testing by unveiling a car that’s virtually a clone of last season’s championship-winning Mercedes. And, this sort of approach is what Formula 1 needs.
With the fresh design of this year’s car – the RP20 – the team are breaking the mould and pushing the boundaries – which is what Formula 1 is about (or should be about).
Racing Point is just doing it in a less-conventional way.
Unlike recent pioneering ideas – like Brawn’s title-winning double diffuser or even the Mercedes DAS system – Force India’s radical approach isn’t expressed as technical innovation, but a changed ideology.
“The RP20 is entirely new, meaning that there’s very little carryover from our 2019 car,” the team’s technical director, Andrew Green, said in a recent Q&A. Green admitted Racing Point has applied “what we’ve seen adopted by some of our competitors” to their 2020 challenger.
And can you blame them for changing their ideology? After a fraught few years, highlighted by near-bankruptcy and a subsequent change in ownership, the Silverstone-based privateer team has lost touch with the top of the midfield.
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Heck, in 2014 and 2015, the small team on a shoestring budget was scoring podiums and regularly picking up the pieces when the top six cars hit trouble.
Although their fall from grace hasn’t been as dire as Williams, they were not where they wanted to be in 2019, finishing 7th in the Constructors Championship.
The dynamics of the midfield have evolved since the start of the turbo-hybrid era, with the renaissance of Renault and McLaren as genuine contenders. And, Force India has to try something new to stay competitive.
And the team clearly has high hopes after February’s round of winter testing that it could work.
“Overall, it’s been a positive winter for us,” performance engineering director Tom McCullough said after the final day of testing. “We’ve learned a lot about the RP20 over the past two weeks,” he added.
Technical director Green said 2020 - whenever it gets underway - will be about the team doing what they’ve wanted to do for a very long time.
“To show what we’re really capable of doing.”